Once in a Blue Moon
by Born-Of-Elven-Blood
Summary: Moonlight makes things both softer and sharper. It is in the moonlight that the true shape of things is revealed. HikaruxKaouru


**Disclaimer**: Ouran High School Host Club, its characters and plot, are the property of Hatori Bisco and not me. (But don't tell Kyoya, or he might start trying to escape again.)

**Warning**: The following contains fictional situations of homosexuality and incest. Don't like it? Don't read it. Flames will be skewered on a stick and roasted on themselves.

**_On with the show!_**

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**Once in a Blue Moon

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Moonlight makes things both softer and sharper. As the shadows lengthen and deepen, unimportant detail is thrown into obscurity, leaving only bare form visible. It is in the moonlight that the true shape of things is revealed.

There was a cricket outside the window. It had been chirping tirelessly for hours. Hikaru liked to think that was what had kept him lying awake all this time as his eyes kept unwavering vigil over the steady rhythm of his twin's respiration.

Kaoru's back was to him. Hikaru had been staring at the way the moonlight that filtered through the curtains made the bare skin of his brother's lean-muscled shoulders and back glow ethereally. Every so often he would stir in his sleep, and his movements were slow, languid, and decadent, like a cat stretching. His shoulder blades would shift under his skin and the moonlight would dance along the lines of muscle and his skin would shimmer hypnotically.

Hikaru found himself wondering what it felt like, that little patch of skin just there above Kaoru's shoulder blade that glowed so invitingly, pale alabaster in the moonlight. Was it as soft and smooth as it looked?

That, however, certainly wasn't what was keeping him awake. And just to prove it to himself, he reached out ever so slowly and trailed one finger over the ridge of bone, gently, so as not to wake his brother. Soft, yes, and smooth, familiar. The same as it had always been on countless other nights when the moon filtered through the curtains and played across the bed they had shared all their lives.

It was no different.

It should not seem any different.

It was definitely different.

He should not have to hesitate to touch his brother, his other half, as he had hundreds of times before, playing, wrestling or toying with the fragile hearts of women. Why did this feather-light stroke seem so illicit? So much so that it had taken Hikaru hours of laying awake listening to a relentlessly chirping cricket to work up the audacity to do it?

Was that why he was still awake? Hikaru didn't like to think so. And just to prove it to himself, he leaned down, ever so slowly and brushed his lips over that same enticing spot just above the shoulder blade. It was even softer against his lips.

Then he flipped over and closed his eyes. The cricket was still serenading itself, but somehow it didn't seem as grating as before. Hikaru didn't wonder about this as he sank into sleep.

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_Another night, another dream, but always you…

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_

Kaoru shivered. In spite of the blankets and body heat, he must be cold. That was why he was lying awake and staring very hard at the way the moonbeams slanted across the ceiling so that he didn't have to look at them slanting over the bare plains of Hikaru's chest. Or the way they seemed to slide over the lines of his nose and jaw, creating a soft, sharp alien visage on that familiar sleeping face. Or the way they created a strange network of shadows inside his brother's palm, snaking between his slightly curled digits like fingers intertwining with his twin's.

He didn't want to look at that. Not at all. Because if he looked at that again, like he had through the fog of half-awareness in his mind when he'd stirred awake half an hour earlier, he knew he would begin to want to very badly.

He certainly didn't want to right now. He was just cold and that was why he was lying awake staring at the way the moonlight lay on the white ceiling. And if he didn't want to look, he certainly didn't want to touch Hikaru the way the moonlight was touching him. That was outright.

He shivered again.

Almost—_almost—_on its own, his hand, which had been tucked by his side, slid up his chest, trailing along his neck, past the line of his jaw until his fingers were splayed over his own face. His tactile exploration of his own features was hesitant, delicate, as though he were touching a stranger's face rather than his own.

He brushed the pads of his fingers over his cheeks, down the line of his nose, along the swell of his bottom lip, up his jaw, around the shell of his ear. He continued down the line of muscles on his neck that led him to his collar bone, which he toyed with earnestly. He followed it down to his sternum, and his thumb ghosted over his own erect nipple. Erect because he was cold, he reminded himself. His hands traced leisurely patters on the flesh of his chest and stomach, drawing little circles around his belly button.

He could do this because it was his own body. There was no need to justify it, to himself or anyone else.

He didn't have to think about the fact that his body was identical to Hikaru's. Nor did he have to acknowledge that his hands were identical to Hikaru's as well.

And he wouldn't. Because if he did, he would begin to want _something_ very badly, he felt sure.

He was still shivering, but he couldn't quite manage to convince himself that he was cold any more. His eyes were drifting closed as the spreading warmth in his chest lulled him to sleep. His searching fingers slowed, and his hand drifted back to his side, where Hikaru's lay enfolded in the fragile grasp of the moonlight.

Almost—_almost_—on its own, his hand shooed the interloping moonlight away as his own fingers slid between his brothers and at last came to rest there, gently intertwined.

Kaoru, as the more sensitive of the two, might have wondered about it, but he was already asleep.

* * *

A blue moon occurs when the moon is full for the second time in one month. This is a rare anomaly in the yearly cycle, hence the phrase "Once in a blue moon." Shockingly, it had been Haruhi who suggested that the host club plan something for the occasion. 

Well, technically she had done nothing more than mention seeing it marked on her wall calendar and commented on the infrequency of it. But technicalities were lost on the twins, who were busy sharing their favorite toy like all good brothers do.

In the harsh, glaring, blinding light of day, Hikaru didn't know why the light on the fair skin of Haruhi's neck was so enticing, but it didn't stop him from nuzzling his head into the crook of her neck playfully. Meanwhile, Kaoru couldn't understand why Haruhi's thin, delicate fingers were so intriguing, but he took her hand in his and toyed with them nonetheless. Tono saved them the trouble of sorting out uncomfortable, half-defined questions with a horrified tirade. He was not the king for nothing.

One way or another, however it had happened, Haruhi's comment had led to brainstorming, which had lead to discussing, which had led to planning.

By the time the creative dusts had settled, the Host Club had arranged the 'Stroll in the Blue Moon Light'. It was a get-together of sorts, on the school grounds at night.

The main area was tastefully lit with lanterns and candle light, where the girls could chat, listen to soft music, snack on treats and enjoy the ambience while they waited their turn to take a romantic stroll through the gardens with their favorite host under the silver beams of the full moon.

Tamaki, Haruhi and Mori were the most popular at this event—their characters were best disposed to the peaceful and mysterious atmosphere of the evening. Hunny sat at one of the tables, kicking his short legs as they dangled from his chair and inhaling sweets. Kyoya managed to look romantic and mysterious while crunching numbers and grinning imperceptibly as he added up their profit for the evening. Hikaru and Kaoru embraced passionately and gushed sweet nothings at each other to a chorus of shrieks and giggles.

The wide, glowing eye of the full moon watched the events below with a piercing gaze, but the haze of ambient lighting of the common area was enough to keep its transformative powers at bay. It might have been any other day at the host club, even though it was night.

There was, however, one unexpected turn of events. Kaoru had been requested. Only Kaoru.

As Kyoya announced this to them, they had stiffened, their eyes meeting for a brief moment. Volumes passed between them, though neither had time to pause and study the texts. One thing was clear however. This was the first time either of them had been designated individually.

As hosts, the Hitachiin twins sold 'brotherly love'. It was their gimmick, and by necessity, they came as a package. This was by and large understood without being spelled out. Someone had broken that unspoken rule and was trying to turn a set of twins into two people. They were in unfamiliar territory, a place they had visited with Haruhi, but which remained wild and largely unexplored.

In the past, as they had with the girls that had confessed to one or the other of them, they would have played mind games with this intruder until she was in tears for having dared to think herself worthy of their private world. But this was different. This was not reality, this was the host club. For the first time, sending a girl away in tears would have consequences.

Kaoru stepped away from his brother and offered his arm to his client, some girl from class 1B. Hikaru watched helplessly, feeling strangely like a drowning man, as his brother led the girl out of the soft glow of the candles and onto the moon lit path. He watched as they chatted amiably, growing smaller with distance.

Hikaru knew that the silhouetted pair was his brother and some faceless girl whose name they wouldn't remember in the morning. But in the moonlight, cloaked in darkness and edged with silver, his eyes saw an intimate couple rounding the corner of the hedges and disappearing to some clandestine rendezvous.

He _knew_ better.

But the moonlight said otherwise. The moonlight told him he should worry. The moonlight told him he should suspect. The moonlight told him that he wanted to replace one of those silhouettes in the intimate darkness. Hikaru might have wanted to question what the moonlight thought it was insinuating, but since moonlight cannot actually talk, Hikaru didn't actually hear these whispers, and therefore couldn't find a way to contradict them.

The moonlight beckoned him out of the ring of artificial light. Hikaru was not jealous of that nameless, faceless girl.

And just to prove it to himself, as Kaoru and his client finally rounded the bend, Hikaru followed.

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"I'm sorry, princess," Kaoru said softly. 

They had paused before the marble gazebo in the hedge garden to rest, and she had stepped closer to him, leaning into him, moonlight sparkling in her hair, face hidden in shadow. Her soft curves felt nice against his body but…

It just wasn't right. It was alien and uncomfortable. He felt cold beside her, and for once he didn't have to convince himself of it. She tensed and drew back at his words.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, and he meant it.

He meant it because if he didn't, it meant he wanted something else, something he was sure he couldn't have, something he would probably be sorry for wanting in the long run. It was much less dangerous and painful to be sorry for this instead.

Her head bowed. "It's okay," she assured him, and her voice was heavy with resignation, "I understand. I see the way you look at each other. No one could ever take his place, but I had to try."

Kaoru glanced up sharply. He tried to ask her what she meant, who she meant, but she seemed to be smiling at him knowingly, and he felt a little stupid as she walked past him and out of sight, back to the common area, like he should already know the answer. He was left alone in the dark, both literally and figuratively.

Dumbfounded, he sat down in the gazebo, leaning his elbows on the table and his head against the heels of his palms. He wasn't even slightly surprised when Hikaru settled next to him a moment later.

"Hikaru?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm confused," Kaoru confided, only he wasn't, because after the cold he'd felt pressed against that girl, Hikaru's body beside his felt wonderfully warm.

"Me too," Hikaru lied, just to prove to himself that he still could.

It was very dark inside the gazebo, but a few thin beams of moonlight managed to trickle in through the thick hedge, so that the two, twin brothers forbidden to be anything else by the harsh, judging light of day, were nothing more than a couple of gray silhouettes in the darkness.

And even though Kaoru couldn't see Hikaru's hands, he still managed to interlace his fingers with his brother's.

And even though Hikaru couldn't see Kaoru's skin, it still felt soft under his lips as he brought their joined hands to his mouth.

And somehow they found each other by bare radiance of the blue moon and drew closer, and Kaoru could feel Hikaru's breath fanning his face, the first of many touches he would no longer have to imagine, and Hikaru felt how soft Kaoru's lips were with his own.

The sun would rise and they would have to go around blind once more, stumbling around in the harsh glare with the rest of the world, feeling their way along and hoping against hope that they wouldn't stumble and fall along the way.

But when the glare subsided, by the soft, steady light of the moon, they could finally see what really mattered, and they would always find each other once again.

Moonlight makes things both softer and sharper. As the shadows lengthen and deepen, unimportant detail is thrown into obscurity, leaving only bare form visible. It is in the moonlight that the true shape of things is revealed.

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**Owari

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Yay, its done! I've got about 10 half-done Ouran fics, but this is the first one I've completed! I've never really written any shounen ai before, so let me know how I did please! Reviews are an important part of the fanfic-author's diet—without them, we'll starve! I welcome constructive criticism, but, as stated above, flames will be skewered with pointy sticks and roasted on themselves.

If you enjoyed this fic, be sure to be on the lookout for more Ouran fics by me in the near future Thanks for reading!


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